'It will come with a jump,' the doctor inclined to think. 'He's been on the level for some time now. Suddenly he'll grow up and declare his mighty mind.'
Father liked humour in the gravest talk; indeed the weightier the subject, the more he valued a humorous light upon it. The best judgment, he held, was shaped by humour, sense of proportion lost without it. His wife, however, thought 'it a pity.' Grave things she liked grave.
'There's something very deep in Tommy,' she observed, as though he were developing a hidden malady.
'Hum,' agreed her husband. 'His subconscious content is unusual, both in kind and quantity.' His eyes twinkled. 'It's possible he may turn out an artist, or a preacher. If the former, I'll bet his output will be original; and, as for the latter,'—he paused a second—'he's too logical and too fearless to be orthodox. Already he thinks things out for himself.'
'I should like to see him in the Church, though,' said Mother. 'He would do a lot of good. But he is uncompromising, rather.'
'His honesty certainly is against him,' sighed his father. 'What do you think he asked me the other day?'
'I'm sure I don't know, John.' The answer completed itself with the unspoken 'He never asks me anything now.'
'He came straight up to me and said, 'Father, is it good to feel pain? To let it come, I mean, or try to dodge it?''
'Had he hurt himself?' the woman asked quickly. It seemed she winced.
'Not physically. He had been feeling something inside. He wanted to know how 'a man' should meet the case.'